Elections Can’t Continue Being About The ‘R’ Or The ‘D’
With the Midterm Elections upon us (early voting is already underway) we all really should take a moment to seriously reevaluate how we go about choosing who runs our government. As it stands today, government exists as an industry and one that significantly enriches both those elected to office and those connected to them, all while only marginally serving the public.
Because government has become an industry – at every level but heaviest from top-down, those vying for office understand the value in marketing, both in marketing themselves and aligning with the two major “consumer” (read: voter) demographics: Republican and Democrat.
And while there are significant numbers of Libertarians and registered Independent consumers, these demographics are not the bulk of the political market demographic, even though all elections are won “in the middle.”
Therefore, because elections are heavily influenced by marketing – both directly and via the mainstream media complex – and marketing costs money, messaging is geared to the predominant demographics with a secondary ( and often sensationalist) obligatory nod to the all important Libertarian and Independent – along with undeclared – demographics.
The Lowest Common Denominator Messaging Model
Over the lifespan of the United States we have seen the political parties employ the mass marketing of both party and aligned candidates to capture the most number of consumers possible. This is smart if winning elections is the only goal. But winning elections is simply the precursor to governing and this is where mass marketing to the lowest common denominator fails the people.
Anyone who has ever been involved with a political campaign (or mass marketing, for that matter) understands that because the attention span of the average consumer (voter) has been conditioned to last for about 30 seconds, an entire campaign – the entire platform of someone running for office – has to be condensed into a 13 second “elevator speech,’ which is tantamount to limiting the entire platform to what can be contained on a bumper sticker.
Anyone with enough gray matter to fill a thimble understands that it is impossible to fully understand the vision, intent, and/or true political leanings of any candidate in 30 seconds. It’s impossible. Yet, the marketing of political candidates and the two major parties is ruled by this rubric and, thus, the overwhelming majority of consumers are basing their decisions on said marketing.
Yes, there are those who actually take the time and effort to dig into who the candidates really are, who the leaders of the political parties have come to be, and who is in reality pulling the strings behind the scenes. But because the political marketing apparatus is so behemoth– yet concentrated to the elite, most voices that warn of candidates and agendas that aren’t who and what they portray themselves to be are roundly and routinely marginalized through elitist exclusion, smear, discretization, and today, thanks to Silicon Valley, censorship.
And so it is that the American political consumer is making decisions about the direction of the country – and the free world – based on nothing more than the illusion of who any given candidate is, how they intend to govern, or for what they stand.
Criminalizing The First Amendment
Over the past two years, the political sphere – from both sides of the aisle but for a scant few voices – has been obsessed with insisting that it is unlawful to question the outcome of an election. This insistence is to the point where congressional committees – along with a fully politicized US Department of Justice – is colluding to criminalize the practice.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights mandates – without caveat – that political free speech is sacrosanct; that the federal government is forbidden from limiting political free speech or the redress of government:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That completely covers the issue. Anyone from any walk of life, regardless of station or party, has the right to question the outcome of any political or governmental action, be it an election, legislation, executive order or Executive Branch regulatory action. The federal government does not have the right or the authority to criminalize political free speech. Period. Dot.
Yet that is exactly what the nefarious actors of the illegitimately convened January 6th congressional committee (J6) are doing, with the full support of the Biden administration and the DoJ.
The fascist regimes of history would be envious of what is taking place today in the United States at the current attack on the Bill of Rights.
When Bias Rules The Realm
Aside from the fact that the criminalization of political free speech is wholly unconstitutional, the targets for said criminalization – especially those who question the legitimacy of an election – are partisan in nature.
While the J6 committee intimates the targeting of anyone and everyone associated with former President Donald Trump along with a significant portion of the Republican Party is a one-off, we have witnessed the protesting of elections – contemporarily – since the year 2000 and only when a Democrat loses.
In 2000, Al Gore and the Democrat National Committee contested the General Election, which elevated George W. Bush to the presidency. Bush’s victory only came after a contentious back and forth that led to a US Supreme Court Ruling invoking the Equal Protection Clause as it referred to variable standards of validating ballots.
At that point it was game on:
A partisan consortium of newspapers from the mainstream media complex executed their own “recount” and found, “If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin.”
Terry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the DNC and failed 2021 gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, spent the entirety of the Bush years unabashedly claiming that Bush stole the 2000 contest. At the 2004 Democrat National Convention, McAuliffe bellowed, “We actually won the last presidential election, folks, they stole the last presidential election.”
And even the World Socialists chimed in saying, “...we intransigently opposed the effort of the Bush campaign and the ultra-right to steal the election, and we warned that the success of this effort would have devastating implications for the American people.”
Hard to say that the ideological Left wasn’t “questioning the outcome” of the 2000 election.
Then there was the 2004 General Election between John Kerry and then-incumbent President George W, Bush where The New Yorker columnist David Remnick – a friend of Kerry’s – insisted that Kerry had deeply held suspicions “that in certain states, particularly Ohio, where the Electoral College count hinged, proxies for Bush had rigged many voting machines.”
And then we have the perennial loser and political has-been, Hillary Clinton, who declared that not only was the 2016 General Election stolen from her, but that Donald Trump was an “illegitimate president.”
Today, Clinton – who refuses to recede from the political spotlight with any dignity – is seeding the same “stolen election” claim preemptively!
As the Washington Examiner reports:
“After liberals spent almost two years denouncing ‘election deniers’ as domestic terrorists, Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm on so-called ‘far right extremists’ whom she says ‘already have a plan to literally steal the next presidential election’...”
She protested that should the 2024 General Election be close or challenged that “state legislatures, many of them Republican-controlled” would have the final say in the election alluding to the idea that if the Democrat candidate loses the election will have been stolen.
The problem with Clinton’s fascist viewpoint is this. The US Constitution empowers the state legislatures with crafting federal election law.
From Gore, Kerry, and Clinton to Stacey Abrams in Georgia, if a Democrat loses the election was “obviously” stolen.
By contrast, dating back to the 2000 General Election, aside from the Trump camp’s protestations, no Republican candidate or political party representative has ever declared an election stolen when the Democrat has been the victor.
The Power of Marketing & The Pollution Of Elections
So, now that it has been established that when Democrats lose elections the elections were “stolen” and that consumers really don’t know who they are voting for, it comes to this. We are in the mess we are in because:
We do not take the time to thoroughly vet the candidates put before us
The political parties and the complicit mainstream media complex are disingenuous in the marketing of their candidates
Because electoral politics is now a profitable industry, both political parties are equally guilty of engaging in the bureaucratic Deep State to protect their elected class
To the last point, except for the very few who exist at the edges – the constitutionalists and those who have fidelity to the Founding Documents on the one end and the fascists, socialists, and globalists on the other, there is very little difference between the two major political parties. No matter what the issue, over time, we have moved incrementally to the ideological Left and towards the globalism promoted by the World Economic Forum; the Communist Chinese “Capi-Communist” economic model.
We Were Warned
In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned of the evil of factions:
“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion...
“Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
“This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”
It’s Time For A Change
It’s time to honestly set ourselves to identifying the opportunistic elements within our own chosen political parties. We can no longer simply vote “R” or “D” because nefarious actors have used that generalized public practice to infiltrate the halls of power by misrepresenting themselves so as to gain access to the enrichment mechanism that is elected office; to enter into the industry of government.
We can no longer automatically identify the “good guys” or “bad girls” by the letter that follows their names. Instead, we must – must – carve out time to vet each and every candidate for each and every office or retention, to include the retention of judges.
As I travel frequently these days, I executed my ballot absentee and in vetting each of the lesser known candidates and judges, it took me less than an hour to understand who was worthy of my vote and who was not, all without the interference of marketing, both direct and via the mainstream media complex.
Organizations like OpenSecrets.org – which “follows the money,” and DiscoverTheNetworks.org – which tracks activist public figures, can aid in your vetting process.
But one thing's for certain. If you can’t spare an hour to vet the people on the ballot and if you refuse to acknowledge the biased marketing of the political parties and the complicit mainstream media complex, you really shouldn’t feel adequately prepared to cast a ballot.
It’s time for a change and that change starts with each of us and how we choose who governs us.
